


Run, boy, Run

by apostate (394percentdone)



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Despair as motivation, Flashbacks, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-21
Updated: 2019-08-21
Packaged: 2020-09-23 13:40:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20341021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/394percentdone/pseuds/apostate
Summary: Carver flees to Lothering after Ostagar





	Run, boy, Run

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dankou](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dankou/gifts).

If he blinks there’s nothing to hold the memories back. Days on the road, empty and barren and stretching so far Carver isn’t sure where the sky ends and the way home begins, have done little but add leaden weights on his shoulders. Each step heavier than the last. Not that it matters, not anymore. Carver will walk until his legs give out beneath him if he has too, go down only when he can no longer stand up. 

Grey skies cast shadows beneath Carver’s eyes and he refuses to let them shut. Rain is coming but it won’t do anything except force dirt to give way to mud. It won’t slow either of them down, not him and not the horde behind. And Maker be damned if Carver doesn’t reach home first. 

His footprints leave crimson droplets in the dusty earth, the last of his bandages soaked through hours ago now. The fire in his leg died out well before he started down this road leaving numbness in its wake. If he blinks -

_ The sweet smell of death is familiar. It’s unavoidable on a farm, animals sicken and die or are slaughtered for winter, fevers take the young and old without proper care. Something to grieve, yes, but not to be frightened of. Never to be terrified of.  _

_ But darkspawn reek of horrors and paint the battlefield with cruel crimson strokes. Stories Carver grew up with could never tell the real tale of this, there is no glory to be found amongst corpses. The stench sits between his teeth and he wonders if the screams of those around him are desperate attempts to force the stink of death from their own tongues. May the Maker have mercy on their souls.  _

_ Their pleas don’t seem to have any effect on the living, or at least, not the ones the dying want. Shrill screams linger in Carver’s ears, the rumbling ones burrow through his chest, and the gurgles of the truly lost sink between his ribs to squeeze the beating of his heart. A true fear the likes of which Carver has never known.  _

_ The sword in his hand isn’t heavy and yet Carver’s arms still ache. Teeth bared in the face of a slaughter. Carver can’t afford to lose, none of them can. If this horde breaks their line all of Ferelden is lost with them.  _

_ And Carver won’t let that happen. _

Jerking his head violently to the side Carver grits his teeth and forces down the bitter bile rising in the back of his throat. He just has to make it before the darkspawn do. Shuddering breaths, lungs on the verge of collapse. Carver takes step after wooden step and still, the road stretches out before him. Blurred around the edges. 

He doesn’t remember it taking this long. 

A rumble of thunder rolls across the plain and reverberates inside Carver’s chest. He didn’t see the lightning. Dark clouds boil overhead and the air is humid, thick with the anticipation of a late spring storm. Carver licks lips tasting of rust and wonders if the rain will wash clean the spoiling filth from his battered armor.

His vision swims but Carver just keeps shaking his head, like a dog with water in his ears. Sprinkling blood across the road. Not like this. The air turns sharp as he breathes, sticks in his throat and slices through his lungs, burning until nothing is left. Please, not like this. 

If he blinks they’ll catch up with him. Carver’s legs are weak but he still stands, his steps wobble but he still takes them. Gasping, limping. Alone now on an empty road heading to a home he couldn’t save. 

No. No, a home he  _ will _ save. 

_ Darkspawn don’t take prisoners. Not of soldiers, at least. A quick death is a blessing on this battlefield, where the blood is beginning to gather in pools and the reinforcements they were counting on aren’t coming. Retreat isn’t a word Carver will let fall from his lips and it isn’t one he hears called on the horns. Yet it doesn’t stop cowards from turning their back on their duty.  _

_ Battle descends into chaos. Lines of men break and cower and run. Carver pushes through them, don’t they understand what they’re fighting? They can’t turn away from this, not without knowing it will follow them home. _

_ Only attacking, not thinking about the repercussions. Swinging near blindly into the horde, his first taste of battle coating his tongue with acrid hopelessness. If he can just go further, kill more. The horde is endless but even one fewer might mean they never make it far enough to threaten his home.  _

_ But there are so many darkspawn. _

_ And Carver’s arms ache.  _

_ His chest heaves with desperation, his eyes sting with despair. If he blinks he’ll miss them, swing too wide and they’ll catch him. So Carver keeps his eyes wide open and he fights with the energy of the damned. Because he isn’t letting the horde further. Not unless they step over his corpse. _

Stumbling in the road Carver falls to one knee. Collapses in the dust and tries not to scream. Not like this! 

If he is going to die it will be fighting, it should have been fighting. 

There’s so many of them, a roiling wave of putrid damnation. Blight. He has to make it, to warn them. Carver tries to stand but his leg,  _ his leg _

_ Carver screams. Voice giving out around the burning of his leg, eyes finally blinking shut. A hurlock, its fetid breath in Carver’s face as it raises a sword dripping with his blood to deal another blow. Finally. _

_ Hip to knee a line of fire eats at Carver’s sweat-soaked flesh, the sting of salt and malaise. But it’s not enough, not by far. Scream turning to shout, a sword raised to block. Carver keeps fighting because he can’t let them further.  _

_ He can’t let them - _

_ Hands on his shoulders. Yanking him backward and out of range from the hurlock. Carver snarls, fights back, “Let me go!”  _

_ “Get out of here, son!” Another set of hands, a grey beard and hard eyes.  _

_ Pushing back, struggling to fight and to kill and protect. “We have to stop them what are you doing?!” _

_ A third joining the others, forcing him to retreat, to pull back. “Saving your damn life.” _

This time Carver watches the lightning strike through the clouds. It cuts through the grey in a brilliant streak of white so bright it’s nearly blue and Carver is almost prepared for the thunder. Roaring instead of rumbling, shaking the heavens with the anger of the storm, an anger Carver finds sympathetic. 

The first raindrop lands on his shoulder. The second on the puddle of blood beneath his knee. And all at once the heavens part and the rain falls in a deluge of clean water. Washing the puddle from crimson to pink. Ozone replacing the lingering stench of dried blood and death.

Even if he has to crawl, claw his way through the mud, Carver isn’t going to die here, alone. Not like this. 

He just can’t blink.


End file.
